Through the six players on the tennis court at noon on Friday in Beverly Hills, I am timing two Cartier watches and a Rolex. There are tennis skirts associated with large tricus sweaters and white sneakers and tote bags with college embroidery. Behind the sunglasses and the baseball caps, the members seem to be in mid-vings at the start of the thirties. But it doesn't matter how much the scene can look like a country club in front of first sight, this meeting almost exists in opposition to the handful of costly clubs in the city with waiting lists of several years and long membership requirements.
Kacper Owsian welcomes someone at their tennis clinic in Beverly Hills.
(Emil Ravelo / For Times)
It is the Sunset Tennis Club, a tennis club based on members which operates on a series of courts in high -end districts of Los Angeles. Founded at the beginning of 2023 by Anna and Kacper Owsian, the organization considers itself a “floating tennis club”, said Anna, only without the obstacles to the entrance which prevent many millennials and zoomers.
Once a couple, now business partners, Anna and Kacper immigrated to Los Angeles in Poland at the end of 2022. The pair met over ten years ago by playing tennis in the city of Poznań, where Kacper, a former tennis pro, followed in the footsteps of his family in the industries of tennis and Anna, who plays for fun, worked in fashion and industries well-being. When the two moved to Los Angeles, they, like many recent transplants, had trouble finding a community. They used their mutual tennis love as a way to make friends, fixing an appointment once a week, followed evenings for dinner and drinks. From there, the idea of starting the club as a business was born.
Living in the rich Brentwood at the time, they were inspired by the aesthetics of the life of Country Club, even if they could not participate. Anna wanted to lend her experience in fashion to the brand of a tennis club which was “more than just a place to play, but the sport we love, redesigned for the new generation”. Kacper could teach. The first official Tennis Sunset club started once a week in Beverly Hills, at the presence of a small group of friends of friends.
Sunset Tennis Club sells unique clinics or small group lessons separated by level. Kacper still teaches, but they also use a handful of coaches. Despite its absence of a single brick and mortar location, the club operates on a membership model. Anyone who can afford to invest a few hundred dollars in his game is invited to join instantly via the brand's website. Membership is on several levels, depending on the frequency in which we want to participate in the clinics. Four clinics for beginners per month cost $ 200, while 12 extend from $ 480 to $ 540 depending on the member's experience level. Additional private lessons are available.
The club plays on six locations – including Beverly Hills, Hancock Park and Brentwood – which are all in private property, accessible by the personal relationships of the founders.
The Sunset Tennis Club arrived in Los Angeles at a time when racket sports increase in popularity. According to a study of 2024 of Racquetx, a conference for racket sports professionals, the category – which includes tennis, pickleball, squash, badminton and table tennis – has increased by 30% since 2021. Tennis players in the United States went from 1.9 million players to 25.7 million players in 2024, its fifth consecutive year in the United States Association. The founders say that so far in 2025, the Sunset Tennis Club welcomed 1,000 players in its 25 weekly clinics and its rotary events monthly.
Anna and Kacper Owsian organize a tennis clinic in Beverly Hills.
(Emil Ravelo / For Times)
His growing membership may have as much to do with tennis sport as the fashion associated with it. Amanda Greeley, owner of the Sports Racket Spence fashion brand, maintains that the increased popularity of tennis is the result of photogenic nature, but also the desire to connect society.
“Tennis looks well on Instagram, but I also think it draws from something deeper: tennis is social. In a world where so much physical shape has become lonely – spin bikes, training camps, applications – tennis offers a real connection and in person. It is active and community. “
Even if someone can join Sunset Tennis Clubs, this does not mean that their events are entirely devoid of the old -fashioned boastful often spotted on Los Angeles tennis courts. The organization operates “between public courts and country clubs … Something that is accessible for people but at the same time a little more exclusive and more unique,” said Anna.
Anna Owsian at her tennis clinic
(Emil Ravelo / For Times)
Apart from access to private courts, the feeling of exclusivity comes from the brand image and the support of the Sunset Tennis Club, which tends to share an affinity for crunchy tennis whites and beautiful watches. The Instagram flow of the Sunset Tennis Club resembles that of a fashion brand. Influencers like Song of Style Aimee and the makeup artist Kardashian Mary Phillips are known to frequent clinics. Beyond tennis lessons, membership includes access to social events that range from climbing holidays to charming hotels to invite private boxes during tennis tournaments. Recently, the club has teamed up with the FILA clothing company for the members of the gifts a tennis attire and an invitation to their continuation of private boxes to the large-scale BNP Paribas open in the quinta desert, offering members a daily life otherwise a taste of the influencer living of Los Angeles. Chelsea MA, a 28 -year -old producer who discovered the Sunset Tennis Club through an Instagram announcement, attends a clinic with the group once a week. She says she also made close friends through the club, some of whom she has traveled.
“I was already playing tennis once or twice a week, but I knew I wanted to improve myself,” said my. “It was difficult to find friends who wanted to play tennis regularly (before joining) … The club is unique. It draws from a lifestyle by which members are already living but by the foundation of tennis.”
Like your typical country club, there is a dress code at the Sunnis Tennis Club clinics: tennis whites or black clothes are necessary. In most courts, the group's logo is displayed on the nets and can be seen in the background of the Instagram photos carefully placed on the ground. On Friday that I visited in Beverly Hills, the House music of Rufus from the ground played gently from a speaker while we practice exercises. Even with all these little details, the experience was not exactly the Ritz. The members parked in the street, access to the varied bathrooms per courtyard per courtyard and there was no place to take a COBB salad thereafter. But aesthetically and tonally, puffs of wealth are in reach for those who want a taste.
